Re: Changing from L4 to something else...

[Martin Schaffner]

On Thu, 27 Oct 2005 12:18:53 -0400, Jonathan S. Shapiro wrote:
> In my opinion, the Hurd project is coming to a cusp, and it faces a
> choice between two options:
>
>  1. Hurd can continue to pursue the goals for the GNU OS that were set
>     out in 1983. This is a fine thing to do, but in my opinion this is
>     basically an obsolete activity.
>
>  2. Hurd can try to establish a forward looking vision that makes sense
>     from where we stand now in 2005.

The current Hurd/Mach does not give users much over Linux, since the 
goal to have user-space file systems is now also fulfilled in Linux 
with FUSE, which is probably less buggy, and has more interested 
developers.

If, additionally, user-space drivers are a goal, then
* Hurd/Mach needs to be hacked to support that, or
* the Hurd/L4 port needs to be completed, or
* maybe one could write a Linux module for that purpose, or
* a Hurd/successor(EROS) port is attempted.

I do not know how much work each of these would take. Mach is very 
buggy, it requires a lot of work already because of that, Hurd/L4 is 
nowhere near finished (especially the device driver framework), and as 
for an effort of user-space devices for Linux (other than USB drivers), 
I don't know.

I do not see anyone willing to do one of the first three, so I say 
let's instead try to help the people going for the last one.

Thanks,
Martin